Tough Enough

  Denver swung the pack onto her back and smiled at J.D. “Why worry about a little old spring storm? I’ll bet those men are more dangerous than any storm you’ve ever run across.”

  He laughed. “Got your logic from Max, didn’t you?”

  Just the mention of Max made them look solemnly at one another for a moment, then up the trail after the skiers.

  “Okay, Denny,” J.D. acceded. He touched her cheek, his gaze assuring her that he was willing to take the risk with her, because of her. “Let’s go get ’em.”

  Winter had wrapped the earth in a cold and silent package of white, and spring had done little to release its hold here in the high mountains. Picking up the ski tracks left by the men, she and J.D. followed at a safe distance, gliding their skis across the silken snow in a rhythmic swish. The air tasted cold and wet; the breeze played at the loose strands of hair that had escaped from her braid and her hat. She didn’t look back as they skied away from the highway and deeper and deeper into the mountains. Instead, she concentrated on the skiers ahead. And J.D. directly in front of her. Whatever trouble might lie up the trail, she was taking J.D. into it with her. That, she realized, worried her more than her own safety.

  Daylight came slowly. First, flickers of gray rimmed the mountains, then filtered up into the atmosphere. The snow absorbed the light, then radiated it. But the new day brought problems; they could no longer follow as closely and had to drop back. The men were moving fast, probably rushed by the storm that now inched across the peaks toward them.

  “You know something, Denny?” J.D. remarked at her side. They’d stopped for a moment along a hillside; their quarry had also stopped. The day had broken and was spilling around them, gray as the coming storm. “You’ve turned into quite the woman. I’m proud of you.” He looked away. “They’re moving again,” he said, skiing off.

  She smiled, then followed him.

  A half mile up the trail, J.D. came to a sudden stop. “Get down!” He pushed Denver behind a snow-covered pine, but not before she’d seen the skier below them. He stood at the bottom of a ravine, his rifle raised, looking through the scope. In her direction.

  “Tell me that wasn’t a rifle,” Denver whispered.

  “It was a rifle.”

  She glared at him.

  He shrugged in reply. “Something tells me we’re not dealing with your average armed cross-country skiers here.”

  “Firearms are prohibited in Yellowstone Park,” she said. “And they’re headed for the park.”

  He glanced over at her and smiled. “Well, Denny, when we catch up to those two, I think you’d better tell them that.”

  She mugged a face at him. “Do you think he saw us?”

  J.D. pulled her deeper into the shelter of the pine tree. “I don’t know.” She could see the worry on his face. “You have to admit that the chances are good these guys could be dangerous.”

  She cupped his bearded jaw in her gloved hand. “Convince me it’s a coincidence that Davey told me to be here at sunrise.”

  He smiled at her. “I’ve never had any luck convincing you of anything.” His gaze caressed her face. “You realize, of course, if that skier saw us, he’s probably working his way back up the hill toward us.”

  “Or rounding up his friend to come get us,” she whispered back.

  “You always know just what to say to make me feel better.” His look turned grim. “Seriously, Denny, this is a risky business. I think we’re out of our league here.”

  “But we’re on to something. You feel it, too. If we turn back now, we may never find out what’s going on.” He held her gaze. My God, did J.D. really believe Max was involved in something illegal? She looked at the mountains ahead, suddenly afraid of what they might discover there.

  “If that skier didn’t see us, he’s going to be moving again,” J.D. warned. Denver shifted and peered around the trunk of the tree.

  “Damn. He’s gone.” Denver scanned the trees and the white snowy expanse ahead. “You all right?” she asked, adjusting her backpack. J.D. hadn’t moved.

  He looked at her with a straight face. “We’re miles from the highway, heading into a snowstorm, following two men with guns. Of course I’m all right.”

  She tugged his ski hat down over his face, then poled after the skiers, following the tracks in the snow.

  They’d lost valuable time and the thought of losing the skiers now was unbearable. Ahead she saw the clear-cutting that marked the Yellowstone Park boundary. At first she didn’t see the man. Then she caught a glimpse of movement as white as the snow. He crossed the clearing, his dark-colored coat hidden under what looked like a white bed sheet, and was quickly sucked up in the pines on the other side. Yellowstone Park.

  “Did you see that?” Denver pulled her camera from her pack. Her fingers trembled as she snapped on the telephoto lens. She had a feeling she was about to take some of the best photographs she’d ever taken in her life. The second skier crossed the clearing—also covered with a white sheet. Denver focused, then hit the motor drive, capturing the second skier’s movements on film like an evasive ghost.

  “Kinda makes you think they don’t want anyone to see them enter the park,” J.D. muttered. He stood watching her, a frown creasing his forehead. There was no turning back now, and Denver could see that in J.D.’s expression.

  Denny slipped the camera back into her coat.

  “You realize if there was some way I could protect you—”

  “I’ve been protected too much in my life, as it is.” She squared her shoulders and brushed a gloved finger along his bearded jawline. “From now on, I’m going to make my own mistakes. And by the way, I have Max’s pistol. We’re just as illegal as those two.”

  “Thanks for warning me.”

  The storm dropped over the tops of the pines like a thick drape, snuffing out the light, making the new day appear to dissolve into twilight. The air settled around them, heavy with moisture. Denver threw her pack over her shoulders again and adjusted it, then she and J.D. headed after the men. Time was running out.

  She could feel the men’s driving need to get somewhere. Her arms and legs ached to the point of numbness as the hours passed and she wondered how much farther she could go.

  Not far into the park, the skier in front of them dropped down a hillside and stopped. Denver and J.D. skied into a stand of small pines. Denver slipped her camera from its shelter in her coat and handed J.D. her binoculars. As she focused on the skier they’d been trailing, Denver saw the larger skier join him and push back his ski mask, giving her a clear view of his face. She swore as she recognized him.

  “It’s Cal Dalton!” She snapped his photo, then focused on the other man. He still wore his ski mask, but he looked vaguely familiar. “Can you tell what they’re doing?” she asked J.D.

  Cal tugged at something and a camouflaged tarp fell away from a huge pile of what looked like limbs, tree limbs.

  She focused the telephoto lens on the pile. They weren’t limbs. They were antlers. Elk antlers. Denver moaned.

  “Horn hunters,” J.D. said, peering through the binoculars. “Looks like they’ve come for their cache.”

  The other skier stepped into view, his ski mask now pushed back as he started to load the horn onto the sled.

  Denver’s heart lurched. “It’s Lester Wade.”

  Chapter Twelve

  Pete had never liked Earthquake Lake, didn’t like meeting here and wasn’t thrilled about the feeling he’d had all day that something was wrong, terribly wrong. As he stood at the empty visitors center, he tried to focus his thoughts on Midnight. The boss had finally agreed to meet him face-to-face. No more having to deal with that crazy Cal.

  But not even finally meeting Midnight could keep him from feeling uncomfortable here. He stared at the lake, trying to decide what it was about it that bothered him. A feeling of death hung suspended over the long narrow lake. Maybe it was all the dead trees, still standing like aging sentinels chest-deep in the icy
water. Or maybe it was the ghosts of the people who’d died here that night in 1959 when the earth shook down a mountain on top of them, while behind the fallen mountain, the Madison River pooled like blood to form the lake.

  The phone rang, making him jump. He stared at it, realizing that Midnight had tricked him again.

  “You’re late,” the synthesized voice said on the other end of the line.

  “I thought you said you’d meet me here,” Pete complained.

  Midnight let out that synthesized laugh Pete had come to hate. “You sound tense. Has something happened?”

  “No.” Pete tried to relax. “Everything’s fine.”

  “You have Denver under control?” he asked.

  “Sure.” He only wished. He’d been trying to reach her all morning and there’d been no answer. Where in the hell was she? And more importantly, what kind of trouble were she and J.D. cooking up? At least he had the file now.

  “What about the kid?” Midnight asked. “We find him yet?”

  “Davey won’t be doing any talking.”

  “Then everything is just as we planned?”

  “Yeah.” Pete was relieved when Midnight didn’t ask him any more about Denver, but got straight to business. He’d stashed Davey at a friend’s—not quite as permanent as Midnight would have liked, but Pete didn’t have the stomach for more bloodshed.

  “I have a buyer,” Midnight said. “Wants a trophy elk and a deer. The guy’s willing to pay $16,000 a piece. And we need more bear. Our Oriental entrepreneurs are paying $4,000 a pound for bear gallbladders. The little suckers are so damned easy to transport inside film canisters—let’s hit them hard.”

  “Bear bladders,” Pete muttered, mentally adding them to the list. He wondered where Midnight was calling from. Someplace safe, no doubt, the way he was running off at the mouth.

  “Can you imagine wolfing down dried bear bladders?” Midnight pretended to gag. “Some aphrodisiac, if you ask me. Kind of like that stuff they make out of the horns—wapiti love potion, my behind. Supposed to have a rejuvenating property like ginseng, keeps you from aging or something. All I know is sliced-up elk horns and all those strange grasses they throw in and boil up make for some pretty vile brew. It sure didn’t do anything for me as far as the ladies are concerned, but then I never needed it to start with.” Midnight chuckled. “You might want to try it, though, Pete.” He tried to contain his laugh and failed. “Or maybe give a little to Denver.”

  At times like this, Pete wished he’d never gotten involved with this operation. Or this man. But he had to admit Midnight was damned good at this business; that’s why no one had ever caught him.

  “And my buyer will take all the bear-paw pads you can get,” Midnight continued. “They eat ’em, you know. Bear-paw pads.” He groaned. “Can you believe that?”

  The shadows running ahead of the storm collected in the dead pines. Pete wished they could hurry. He felt nervous and tired; all he wanted was for this to be over so he could go find Denver.

  “Anyone seen any griz yet?” Midnight asked.

  “Yeah, Cal got treed the other day.”

  Midnight swore. “Tell him to shoot the damned things instead of letting them run him up a tree. Jeez. We need more griz and bear claws for our jewelry customers, too.” He chuckled. “That damned Cal. He’s crazy, you know that?”

  Unfortunately, Pete did. And he wondered if Midnight had ordered the hit on Denver the other night or if Cal had just improvised on his own. Another scare tactic.

  Pete could hear Midnight’s admiration for crazy Cal resonating in his counterfeit voice. “How is the shed-horn shipment coming? We can’t miss the deadline or the price will fall.”

  “There won’t be any delays.” At least Pete hoped there wouldn’t be. He could feel Midnight listening closely to him and tried to sound enthusiastic. “Cal says it’s like the ultimate Easter-egg hunt out there this year. They’re picking up a thousand dollars’ worth of horn in about thirty minutes.”

  “My kind of sport!” Midnight declared. “You don’t seem all that excited about business, though. I mean, we’re making more money than the president of the United States and it’s as easy as robbing an unguarded bank.” Midnight laughed.

  “I’m not sure Max would have agreed with that.”

  The laugh died. “Just get me the merchandise. And don’t sound so damned unhappy about raking in money. It makes me nervous.”

  “When am I going to meet you?” Pete asked before Midnight could hang up. “Don’t you think it’s time we quit playing this little electronic phone game?”

  Silence. “We will meet soon enough. In the meantime, make sure Denver doesn’t become any more of a problem. And you know that case file you found of Max’s?”

  Pete held his breath. “Yes?”

  “It felt like some of the information was missing.”

  Pete’s heartbeat echoed, ricocheting against his chest so loudly he almost couldn’t hear Midnight when he spoke.

  “You wouldn’t hold out on me, would you, Pete?”

  “If you’d tell me exactly what it is you’re looking for—”

  But Midnight had already hung up. Pete swore. He didn’t like working for a synthesized voice at the end of a phone line; it was time Midnight showed himself.

  As Pete walked back to his pickup, snow began to drift down from the grayness overhead. He thought about the case file and the information he’d taken out. A little insurance. Then he thought about Max hiding the file, probably thinking it was his insurance. Max’s death still bothered him, gave him nightmares even in the daylight. Maybe there was no insurance against a man like Midnight.

  He returned to his more immediate problem. Denver. Where was she and what was she doing? He didn’t even want to consider the possibilities.

  POACHERS. CAL DALTON and Lester Wade. Denver groaned as she watched Cal raise binoculars and point them toward a wind-scoured slope across the ravine. At the edge of the storm clouds on the opposite mountainside, she could see a bull elk feeding on the snow-bare slope. The area was a winter elk range. And it didn’t take an Einstein to figure the two below her had been collecting the antlers shed by the elk in hopes of smuggling them out of the park—a highly profitable but equally illegal enterprise.

  “It all makes sense now,” Denver said as she remembered Max’s scribbles at the bottom of Lester Wade’s file. “Pearl. Oh, J.D., don’t you see? That’s what Max meant. The Oriental Pearl, the brow of the elk, the elixir of the Orient. The elk horn.” She stared at him, her eyes widening. “Max was referring to the poaching operation.”

  “That would explain a lot,” J.D. agreed. “Like why he was spending time with Cal Dalton. And what Lester Wade was doing late at night when his wife thought he was chasing other women.”

  “And why Lila lied,” Denver added. “I’m sure she and Lester could use any extra money he made. She was probably just relieved Lester wasn’t running around on her.”

  “Most people don’t consider picking up shed horns—even in a national park—much of a crime,” J.D. remarked.

  Denver focused the camera on Cal near another cache of horns and snapped his photo; the motor drive hummed as she captured the two on film as they loaded the sled.

  “Davey must have reason to suspect Max’s death is connected to the poachers,” she said, lowering the camera. “Why else would he tell me to be here this morning?”

  “He could have known Max was investigating Lester Wade and found out about the poaching.”

  She looked over at J.D. as she dropped the exposed film into her backpack. Maybe it was just the way he said it or the way he wouldn’t meet her gaze. “That explains everything except the $150,000 in Max’s account.”

  “Yeah.”

  She began reloading the camera. Her fingers trembled with anger. And fear. “Poaching has become very profitable. Newly shed horns can go for more than ten dollars a pound. But not that profitable.” She bit her lip, and shifted her gaze at him. “Ma
x wasn’t involved in poaching horn.”

  J.D. put his arm around her. “You won’t get an argument from me. Poaching wasn’t Max’s style.”

  She leaned into him and gave him a quick kiss. “Thank you.”

  His eyes sparkled as if he liked the idea of her kissing him for whatever reason. “Still, ten dollars a pound doesn’t seem like much money for the risk involved.”

  “That’s the problem. There isn’t much risk. Right now, the number of rangers in the park is at an all-time low. It’s estimated thirty tons of elk antlers are being shipped to the Orient every year from the twenty thousand head of elk in this great Northern Yellowstone herd. The park’s too large and there aren’t enough rangers to stop the poaching.”

  “Well, it looks like Max tried,” J.D. said.

  She took more shots, getting Mount Holmes in the background so there was no mistaking where the horns—and the horn hunters—were. “With poaching laws so lenient, I just find it hard to believe that anyone would kill Max over a few shed horns. Even if they’re caught, these guys would probably never see jail time. Just a fine.”

  Cal and Lester had taken off their skis and now wandered through the pines on the southern-exposed bare areas of the mountain. Both had their rifles slung over their shoulders. Denver kept photographing as they collected more shed horn.

  J.D. scanned the hillside with the binoculars. “Denny, doesn’t this look like an awfully large horn-hunting operation?”

  She nodded. “Most are just a couple of guys carrying out a few days’ horn on their backs after dark.” She snapped more photos of the poachers and close-ups of the antlers, chocolate brown with ivory tips.

  “If Max was investigating this poaching ring—”

  “Then the case file is probably the one Pete found in the tree house.” She turned to face him. “Pete could be covering for Lester, one of his band members, instead of himself.”